The Rain Came Today

It was an interesting experience, recovering from the half marathon.  While 13 miles isn’t as intense as other runners endure, it was definitely an extreme situation for my body, and I don’t just mean the muscle recovery.  The weirdest thing of all for me was my whole digestive tract.  It was like everything shut down during the run and had a hard time turning back on.  My legs started functioning fully normally on Thursday.  Monday I walked like I rode a horse all weekend, Tuesday was better, Wednesday was almost normal and by Friday I could have gone for a run or Zumba, but I had to decorate a birthday cake for a twelve year old instead.  My toenails seemed to start to heal until I was trimming said toenail yesterday and loosened something.  Once the something was loose, the dam broke and a bunch of gross stuff came squirting out from under my nail.  Yeah.  I think that nail is on its way to coming off, but otherwise, I’m back in the game! 

 The funniest thing of all, though, is how much my identity as a runner has changed in my own eyes.  I’m not just a runner anymore: I’m a runner who has and can run 13.1 miles without stopping.  It’s an identity that I’m attached to more than I thought I would be.  I thought I’d do this once and call it good.  I did it, literally got the tshirt and now I could back off of the running and focus elsewhere, but I like being a person who runs halfs.  I think I need to maintain that for a while.  Gracious me.  You know what that means: more half marathons.  😭 I’m starting to have a deeper understanding of all of those tshirts expressing the love/hate relationship with running.  Ha!

     I’ve been really missing Zumba lately.  Like, REALLY.  It has seemed like there is one thing or another standing in the way of getting to the gym during Zumba times over the past few months and I’m starting to get really annoyed about that.  I haven’t seen my Tuesday instructor, Emily, since July, I’ve only been to a handful of Camille’s classes since then with 2-3 random classes with random instructors thrown in for good measure.  It’s just not enough, considering how much I love Zumba.  I was pleased as punch, then, when Camille posted to Facebook that she was subbing a class on Saturday morning.  I hauled outta bed on time to make it there, and it was wonderful to get to dance.  It’s been so long and inconsistent that I only knew a couple of the songs, but it was wonderful to sweat and dance for an hour.  She even did my favorite Zumba song!  

The thing that got me sore was all the hip swiveling.  In my day-to-day life, I don’t have the opportunity or need, terribly much, to move my hips often like a belly dancer.  Believe it or not, I don’t shimmy and swivel and booty shake all over the classroom all day.  Hard to believe- I know!  So, yesterday, Camille had me booty shaking and hip swiveling to beat the band and it started making me nauseous.  I couldn’t quite figure out what was wrong until I realized that I had exhausted the muscle to the point that I was beyond side ache- I was in full on cramp and it was making me sick!  It quickly passed and I was able to dance through it, but I definitely learned that my core muscle group really missed Zumba.  Dance is amazing for my body and I need to prioritize it.  When October is over, I think life might slow down enough for a little more consistency in the Zumba department, but until then, I’m going to grab every opportunity I can get!

  
My daughter turned 12 this week so we had a bit more going on than usual.  It was interesting to realize what a grown up person she is becoming.  We had a talk about makeup and how she wants to start wearing it in seventh grade.  And with that comes all this other big-kid-grown-up stuff that means she really is growing up and away.  It’s happening.  Such a bittersweet thing, this parenting stuff.  While I can’t be prouder of her, I also feel cheated by time that it’s going so swiftly.  I try not to dwell on that side, but man.  She was so tiny, so recently, that I’m in shock.  And I’m about to turn 42.  

Needless to say, it was an emotional week full of opportunities to eat stuff not ordinarily on the menu.  I’m glad to say that I made it through the week eating pretty well.  On Tuesday night I ate a cream puff, the next day some donut and definitely some birthday cake here and there, but not enough of anything to start weighing more than 200 pounds again.  To me, that says success.  Bradley and I both committed to making it through the holidays without eating too much junk.  We both agreed to birthday cake on the birthdays, a few treats on Halloween, an honest-to-goodness Thanksgiving Feast and a Christmas Celebration with all the trimmings, but before or after those days we are going to be good little pilgrims and merry makers who are staying on plan.  We don’t want to start 2016 with a surplus 20 pounds, this time.  It was helpful to have that reminder in front of me with that pink, four-layer, chocolate, birthday cake calling me from the kitchen.  I went down, cut it into pieces and fed it to the freezer.  I can have the cake for later, if ever, but freezing it helped me to let it go now and I’m already back in the game.  

   I saw an inspiring picture of this woman on her Instagram. While I am not focused on being in bikini competitions or anything, seeing people who push their bodies far like this is interesting and inspiring to me.  It makes me see that the adventure doesn’t have to end because I’ve reached a certain milestone, and I don’t have to stay focused on my initial goal of longevity only forever and always.  I can play with my body and muscle and see what I can do.  At present, I’m feeling pretty inspired and excited about losing some more fat and adding muscle.  Between this lady, crensch, and Skinnymeg, I’m feeling like kicking some butt and doing some hard work for a little while, just to see what I’m capable of.